What I Know about Cop Violence in Louisville (Abridged)
“Wait for it,” I said.
She’s busy. She’s making coffee and reading the news and answering calls to action on Facebook and looking up the next Zoom class for our second-grader.
“Huh?”
“There’ll be an indictment,” I say. “If I were running this circus, I’d make sure they indict just one cop.”
“Oh,” she says. “Well, that’s optimistic.”
“Hell no, it’s not,” I say. “They’ll indict one guy for manslaughter — that makes people feel like they won something. Or, at least it makes the local news channels salivate when people are still in the streets ’cause now they can say ‘my god, they got an indictment, what more could these protesters possibly want?’ Then, they let that one guy plead to something stupid — wanton endangerment, probably. No trial. They can’t let a trial happen, because juries never convict cops and then everyone will be right back in the streets. They’re betting twelve million bucks and a slap on the wrist with no jail time will be the price for keeping the peace.”
“No way, man,” she says, slinging a toddler over her shoulder and lobbing cinnamon rolls at the other two. Then, it was off to school in the living room, leaving me to wait by the radio until the afternoon announcement. When the announcement came, I, the…
